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  the global average daily temperature crossed the 17 degree Celsius mark. That record was broken within a day, with July 4 turning out to be even hotter. The average temperature on July 3 was measured to be 17.01 degree Celsius. The next day recorded 17.18 degree Celsius. Scientists expect more such record-breaking events in the near future. But 17 degree Celsius is not hot A 17 degree Celsius temperature may not appear to be particularly warm. But this temperature was not over any one place or region. Instead, this is a measure of the global average temperature for the day, the average over both land and ocean, including the ice sheets in the polar region and the snow of the high mountains where surface temperatures are well below zero degree Celsius. El Nino impact It is no surprise that the latest record-breaking event has also been measured when an El Nino is developing. On Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) announced the formal onset of the El Nino phase in ...

  What is causing the mysterious ‘gravity hole’ in the Indian Ocean? While it is easy to imagine the Earth as a perfect sphere that has uniform gravity all over, that is far from the case. But that is not the case ; our planet is flat at the poles and it bulges at the equator. Also, it doesn’t have uniform gravity everywhere. For example, there is a massive “gravity hole” in the Indian Ocean and now, researchers have uncovered why that is the case. The strength of the gravitational pull at any part of the world is dependent on the mass of the Earth’s crust, mantle and core beneath that particular region . Interestingly, a massive region in the Indian Ocean, about 1,200 kilometres southwest of the southernmost tip of India, has such a low pull of gravity that the sea level of the Indian ocean over the “hole” is around 106 metres below the global average , according to Scientific American . This pronounced dip in the ocean is called Indian Ocean geoid low (IOGL) and was discovered...